What makes the teaching and learning of grammar in the Malaysian primary

classroom context :
a) difficult
1.

They don't realise it's the same grammar

Although you may be surprised when students who have finally stopped saying "He has to
goes" still say "He must goes" because both should be infinitives, it may be that the students
consciously or subconsciously don't put the two pieces of grammar together as one. The
best solution would be to work on making the points as closely associated in students' heads
as possible, e.g. doing a lesson on all uses of infinitives, teaching a very general rule, or
even pairing questions up where they have to fill the gaps in pairs of sentences with the
same word.
2.

They are overloaded

If the students are making elementary errors with something they usually don't, it could be
because their brains are busier than usual with other things, e.g. coping with the rules of the
language game, digesting the latest language point, sorting out a logic or problem solving
puzzle, or concentrating on another point like their pronunciation. Learning to cope with
many different demands on the brain at the same time is a good thing, as it is what you need
to do with the language in real life, but make sure all language input and correction are left to
a time when they can concentrate on the language more.
3.

They are overusing one point for good reasons

In both native and non-native speakers, the process of learning a new grammar point seems
to often include a period of overextending its use. For example, even people who know the
Simple Past well will start using the Past Perfect in situations they would have used
(correctly) the Simple Past until the day they studied the new tense . Apart from
understanding that this is part of the process and being patient, ways to tackle this could be
to give them lots of controlled practice of the new grammar point, come back to the original
grammar point they confuse it with a few weeks or months later, and concentrate on
correcting one area of confusion at a time.
4.

That point is more difficult for them than it seems

The reason why students pick up some grammar points more quickly than the teacher
expects and others more slowly is often connected to their first language, e.g. confusions
between different uses of similar forms or grammatical forms that don't have an equivalent in
L1. Even teachers who know the language the students speak can be miss out on particular
aspects of this, such as students who speak a particular dialect or different language at
home, or grammatical forms that only educated speakers of that language would be familiar
with. Responses to this include rearranging the syllabus to leave more difficult points for
particular students until later, concentrating on the particular areas of difficulty they have
when the time comes, and approaching the same grammar point several different ways with
gaps in between to let their subconscious get to work.

b) easy
Easy to Teach
These are the aspects of teaching that don't require huge effort. Teachers feel confident that
they understand the material and have interesting ways of presenting the lessons. They
don't feel worried or tentative or in need of more study.
Easy to Learn
This kind of learning seems so simple for them as learners. Something magical happens
and they can understand or do whatever it was that they focused on. They don't have to
struggle and they can consistently produce what they've learned.
Easy to Learn and Easy to Teach: Basic Word Order in Sentences
While some students continue to have trouble with word order in sentences, most students
learn the basic order early in their study of English and do not have major difficulties with
sentence level order. (Some students will continue to have trouble with noun + adjective
ordering but that is not the same as getting subject + verb + object in the correct order.)